A sonority model of syllable contraction in Taiwanese Southern Min

Abstract

This paper reexamines syllable contraction in Taiwanese Southern Min. Grounded on Chung's (1996) autosegmental model, the current analysis is characterized by Six points: (a) Every syllable has an XXX template. (b) Edge-in (Yip 1988) takes care of the association fo edge consonants with edge skeletal slots. (c) The realization of the nucleus abides by the order of N-placement, rising diphthong formation, and falling diphthong formation. (d) The sonority hierarchy of a > superset of > e > o > i > u determines how vocoids are associated with the nucleus position. if there is a tie, the first segment gets linked by temporal sequence. V-neutralization (Chung 1969 turns mid vowels into high when they form rimes with the adjacent vowels. (e) The contracted form abides by Maximality (Prince 1985) to construct the largest possible syllable. (f) In addition, stress is shown irrelevant, and phonotactic constraints may be contravened.